The dissertation deals with the comprehensive study of the administrative and legal foundations of the activity of local bodies of public administration in Ukraine in the context of European integration, which made it possible to identify the main theoretical-legal and practical problems, as well as to highlight the main directions for improving legislation in this area. The theoretical and legal foundations of the activity of local bodies of public administration have been studied. The main attention is focused on the main theoretical approaches to defining the concepts of “public administration”, “public administration body” and “local public administration body”, the essence and purpose of local public administration bodies in the context of the Europeanization of administrative law and public management. Local bodies of public administration are defined as bodies of public administration that exercise public local power at the level of the relevant region, district, territorial community, implement state interests and the interests of the relevant territorial community, while exercising mainly executive and administrative powers and law enforcement functions, including management of state and communal property, provision of public services to the
population, implementation of legal and other state regulation of certain spheres of life of the relevant collective local community (territorial community, settlement, administrative-territorial unit). On the basis of a detailed analysis of doctrinal approaches, the characteristics of local public administration bodies are divided into general (inherent to all public administration bodies) and special (which determine the essence and legal purpose of local public administration bodies). It is concluded that the system of local bodies of public administration consists of the system of local bodies of executive power, bodies of local self-government, persons and organizations that are not bodies of public power, but are endowed with delegated powers of these bodies, bodies of temporary military-civilian administration, which are created to replace local bodies executive power and local self-government bodies in the circumstances of martial law, when the normal functioning of the above-mentioned bodies is impossible and it is expedient to temporarily combine the functions of the executive power and local self-government and transfer the powers of local self-government to state authorities. It is substantiated that the territorial bodies of central executive bodies cannot be classified as local bodies of public administration, since the system of powers that these bodies can exercise, the order of their accountability and control, show the
non-independent nature of these bodies and their actual inclusion in the composition of central executive bodies. Based on a detailed analysis of doctrinal approaches, the components of the administrative and legal status of local bodies of public administration are highlighted, which includes their legal personality, competence, appropriate legal, organizational and functional forms of activity and tools used in the process of such activity by relevant local bodies of public administration.
